Implanted cardiac pacemakers are employed to assist patients suffering from severe bradycardia or chronotropic incompetence. Originally, such pacemakers restored a normal, at rest, heart rate by providing a fixed rate or narrow range of externally programmable rates. However, these pacemakers failed to meet patients' metabolic demands during exercise. Consequently, so-called "rate adaptive" or "rate responsive" pacemakers were developed. These pacemakers sense some parameter correlated to physiologic need and adjust the pacing rate of the pacemaker.
Numerous parameters have been selected to attempt to correlate pacing rate to the actual physiologic need of the patient. Blood pH, blood temperature, QT interval, vibration, respiration rate, or accelerations due to physical activity have been employed with varying degrees of success. Among these parameters are the stroke volume of the heart and the minute volume of respiration, both parameters being inferred from impedance measurements. The stroke volume of the heart is defined as the volume of blood expelled by the ventricle in a single beat. It is equal to the difference between the end diastolic volume and the end systolic volume. In normal human subjects with healthy hearts, the stroke volume of the heart has been found to remain relatively constant over a wide range of exertion. Increases in cardiac output required to meet physiologic needs are primarily provided by increased heart rate. For certain patients with pacemakers whose heart rate is controlled by the pacemaker, increased cardiac output during exertion is provided by the heart attempting to increase its stroke volume. The stroke volume cannot increase, however, by a factor more than about two or two and a half times. Increasing the pacing rate is therefore still desired. It has been proposed to utilize the body's tendency to attempt to increase stroke volume to adjust the pacing rate of an implanted pacemaker, thereby providing an appropriate physiologic pacing rate.
For example, in Salo et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,686,987 a stroke volume responsive, rate adjusting pacemaker is described. An AC signal is inserted through an implanted lead. The changing volume of the heart alters the impedance between the lead electrode and another electrode or the can of the pacemaker, and the changing impedance modulates the detected AC signal. By isolating the resulting amplitude envelope, an indication of the changing impedance can be obtained. This fluctuation is deemed to be a function, at least in part, of the action of the heart.
Chirife, U.S. Pat. No. 5,154,171, proposed that metabolic demands should be related to the ejection fraction, as a more accurate measure of true physiologic need. The ejection fraction is the stroke volume divided by the end diastolic volume. The stroke volume is taken to be the end diastolic volume minus the end systolic volume. The observed impedance of the heart is deemed to be a function of volume of the heart and therefore to be an indication of the desired measurements when taken at an appropriate time.
In practice, intracardiac impedance measurements reflect electrical conductivity in other parts of the body and are not solely related to the beating of the heart. Other motions and factors also change the impedance characteristics. One example is change due to respiration. It has been proposed that the minute volume of respiration could be detected by an appropriate impedance measurement. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,901,725 entitled "Minute Volume Rate Responsive Pacemaker" to Nappholz et al.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,201,808 to Steinhaus et al., describes several attempts to detect the minute volume due to respiration in an accurate manner. Steinhaus et al. also proposes a relatively high frequency waveform as the appropriate means for measuring the spatial impedance as a function of the patient's pleural pressure. Steinhaus et al. notes that different frequencies for the testing pulse are adapted to detecting different phenomenon. That is, one range of frequency may be more appropriate for detecting changes due to heart beats, another would be more appropriate for detecting minute volume.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,197,467 to Steinhaus, et al. describes charging a capacitor (see particularly FIG. 2) and discharging the capacitor through the heart or a portion of the body for a selected brief interval. The voltage remaining on the capacitor after the period of discharge can be detected through a buffer, converted to digital information, and used to estimate the impedance of that portion of the patient's body between the cathode and anode electrodes.
However, a problem raised by the use of impedance as an indirect measure of physiologic need is the indeterminate current path. The impedance of the body is generally measured between at least two points within the body, perhaps an electrode in the heart and a second electrode or the can of an implanted device. The path between these to points, however, is inherently indeterminate. Moreover, the measurement may be affected by motion of the electrode tip, by conditions surrounding the tip or by electrical capacitances adjacent electrodes (as described in Steinhaus et al. '808), or other factors. Myopotentials, pacing artifacts, pacing afterpotentials, and general electrical noise can all mask the desired measurement. It is desirable, therefore, to eliminate or minimize the effect of background interference or apparent baseline impedance so that changes in impedance due to the relatively fast beating heart or to respiration may be amplified and more easily detected.
One approach to solving the problem of electrical noise has been proposed by Prutchi in co-pending, commonly assigned application Ser. No. 08/342,436, filed Nov. 18, 1994, incorporated herein by reference. Prutchi discloses a cardiac pacemaker which senses varying impedance of the heart by discharging an active capacitor through an electrode implanted within the heart to a second electrode or to the case or can of the pacemaker. The active capacitor is discharged for a selected short period of time after which the voltage remaining on the capacitor is buffered for further processing. Prior to discharge of this active capacitor, however, the cardiac pacemaker samples the electrical condition of the heart or the body of the patient between the two electrodes by charging a passive capacitor. The voltage on this passive capacitor is also buffered and held in a sample and hold circuit until the active capacitor has been discharged. The voltage on the passive capacitor is subtracted from the residual voltage on the active capacitor and the resulting voltage is held in a sample and hold circuit. The voltage held in the sample and hold circuit is communicated to a microprocessor for adjustment of the rate of the pacemaker.